Discretionary Fund for Business Application - Privacy Statement

PRIVACY NOTICE – Discretionary Fund for Business Application (includes Discretionary Hardship Fund for Business)

Who we are

Argyll and Bute Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Our head office is located at Kilmory Lochgilphead, PA31 8RT and you can contact our Data Protection Officer by post at this address, by email at: data.protection@argyll-bute.gov.uk and by telephone on 01546 605522

You can find more details about us on our website at www.argyll-bute.gov.uk

Why do we need your personal information and what do we do with it?

This local authority is administering the Discretionary Fund for Business. You are giving us your personal information to allow us to determine whether your business is eligible to receive funding from the Discretionary Fund for Business and to administer that funding to your business.

We also use your information to verify your identity where required, contact you by post, email or telephone, maintain our records and send you information on our other services, including the Council’s Business Gateway support or business support services delivered by our partners

Legal basis for using your information:

Article 6(1)(a) - Consent - by completing the application form you are consenting to us processing your personal data for the assessment and administration of your application to the Discretionary Fund for Business.

Article 6(1)(b) - Contract - Processing your personal information is necessary for the performance of a contract with you.

Who do we share your information with?

We are legally obliged to safeguard public funds so we are required to verify and check your details with other service areas within the Council for fraud prevention. We may share this information with other public bodies (and also receive information from these other bodies) for fraud checking purposes.

We are also legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies, such as HMRC and will do so where the law requires this. We will also generally comply with requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate. Your information is also analysed internally to help us improve our services.

This data sharing is in accordance with the terms of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations 2016 (GDPR) and our privacy notices which you can find on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

Your information will be shared with the Scottish Government for the purposes of determining your application and administering it. We may also share your personal information with our service delivery partners to enable them to assist in the delivery of business advice & support services to you. These partners include Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland.

How long do we keep your information for?

We will keep your personal information for a period of four years, to comply with Subsidy Control monitoring requirements.  Sometimes the time period is set out in the law, but in most cases it is based on the business need. We maintain a records retention schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information for. You can request a copy of the schedule from the contact address stated above.

Your rights under data protection law:

• Access to your information – you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you.
• Correcting your information – we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
• Deletion of your information – you have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
• you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained
• you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information – see Objecting to how we may use your information below
• our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.
• Objecting to how we may use your information – You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
• Restricting how we may use your information – in some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information. This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Please contact us as stated above if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Information you have given us about other people:

If you have provided anyone else’s details on this form, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to Argyll and Bute Council. We will only use this information to process and administer your claim. If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can visit our web site at www.argyll-bute.gov.uk

Complaints:

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you can contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer by email at data.protection@argyll-bute.gov.uk and by telephone on 01546 605522

However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about data protection matters with the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by post at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. By phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745. Visit their website for more information at https://ico.org.uk/concerns